


Child of the Storm

by bluebottle762



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-03
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-10-03 06:12:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17278589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebottle762/pseuds/bluebottle762
Summary: Prompto had magic. Magic in and of itself wasn't unusual, most of his friends were also mages in their own right, and powerful ones at that. No, the thing that was bothering him wasn't the magic, per say (although the cold knowledge that this power had lain dormant in him all this time without his being aware of it didn't sit well) it was that, by rights, he shouldn't.





	Child of the Storm

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MagitekUnit05953234](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagitekUnit05953234/gifts).



Noctis sat cross legged on the ancient green leather of the library desk and frowned at him. A lot of Noct's expressive offerings to the outside world came through as frowns, and this one was a familiar blend of confused and mentally processing. Prompto waited for him to finish working through the problem, twisting his frayed leather cuff around his wrist like some kind of valve on his anxiousness. 

“But you're…” Noctis shifted to lean back on a palm pressed flat to the desktop, characteristic black Caelum hair falling into his eyes enough to prompt him into brushing it back into position distractedly. Ripping his eyes up from the antique carpet, he fixed his confusion on Prompto, the frown deepening as the problem jammed itself in the cogs of his thinking. “Hold on.” he murmured, slipping off the desk gracelessly and crossing to one of the great walnut shelves that lined the arch shaped room. Prompto gripped his cuff as if it had been a literal instruction.

“But like, there's no Argentum line or anything, right? If there was you'd know.” he tried his best to sound hopeful, tacking on a sheepish grin when Noct shot him a concerned glance from over his shoulder. 

“I mean, it's what I'm looking for, but specs is more likely to know than I am. Lineage stuff always put me to sleep.” Noct ticked his shoulder up in a shrug and slid a tome free of the shelf, thick and bound in sea deep leather, the gold embossing on its spine and covers flaked and worn.

On any other occasion Prompto would have made a jab at him about that not being a particularly high bar, but the weight of his worries silenced him. 

Noctis brought the heavy book over to his father's reading stand, positioned dramatically under the large stained glass window that occupied most of the curved wall of the study. The austere expression of the Caelum family patron stared out across the room, its geometrically constructed gaze somehow fixed directly on the spot Prompto was currently occupying right in front of the desk. He shifted uncomfortably, glancing up at the dark, winged visage before going to stand by Noctis. It had most likely been designed that way, now that he thought about it. _Stand before us, gaze upon me and understand my blessing is **power**. _

In the privacy of his own mind, Prompto scripted in an additional _‘Incidentally, I remember every embarrassing thing you've ever thought about my one hundred and fourteenth great grand Warlock, and I'm judging you big time._ ’

Glancing over Noct's shoulder nervously, he watched as Noctis eased the tome open with an awkward grunt, taking a moment to get it seated properly on the stand, clearly under practiced. 

“Uh, okay, I think there's like an index or something… yeah, okay.” turning a few pages worth of titles, dedications, and introduction, Noct settled on a claustrophobic list of names and page numbers. It was difficult to navigate, being organized by patron and origin date as opposed to alphabetically like any sane index should be. About half way through the second column, Noctis flipped frustratedly to the very back of the book to check for another alphabetized list there, and found none. 

“It'd be way easier to do this if they just kept an updated list online or something. A pdf, even. You could at least run a search on that.” flipping back to the start with some effort, Noctis hunched over the list again, grunting in frustration as he ran his finger down the page.

“Why don't they?” Prompto asked, genuinely curious despite his anxiety. Noctis sighed and shrugged like he was personally trying to dislodge this outdated mindset from an imaginary perch upon his shoulder. 

“No idea. Same reason the Primordia has shit WiFi?” a tiny smile caught at the corner of Noct's focused expression enough to infect Prompto too. Everytime Noct was driven to study at the grimly opulent Primordia building up at the institute of mage arts, Prompto would be bombarded with messages both shortly before Noctis went in, and then again once he'd managed to find his way out. It was as if the place blocked off the outside world entirely, beside the slow pulse of people it allowed passage through its imposing doors. Even the heat of summer never seemed to affect it. 

“What, that old gods and Warlocks are all secretly luddites?” Prompto looked up at the mask like face of The Draconian in the window above him, trying to imagine him with a smartphone in hand, checking his Twitter on the tube like Noct so often did, wings slung low across his back in the same way Noct's backpack tended to dangle from his shoulder.

After a pained few minutes of searching, Noct stood up straight and rubbed at his eyes with a frustrated sigh. Prompto's heart sank.

“Nothing under Argentum. Or Serenus,” Noct dragged his hands down his face, looking at Prompto apologetically. “That was your dad's name, right?” 

Prompto nodded.

“Is, yeah. He never actually changed it when they got married. Mr and Mr Argentum wasn't something they wanted.” momentarily stumped, the pair of them looked back down at the book and thought. Noct broke the quiet first, shifting on the spot awkwardly. 

“Personal question…” the tension felt like a thin veneer of tackiness, like a wooden bar top, the sticky ghosts of drinks pasts bonding any lingering fingerprints to its surface unpleasantly. 

“Wow, like you've never asked me one of those before.” Prompto shot him what he hoped was a reassuring smile. Whatever it was, it did the trick, prompting Noct to roll his eyes and relax. 

“Yeah okay, fair.” 

“But heads up, I'm picking dare next time.” flashing him a more genuine grin, Prompto ducked in to elbow Noctis affectionately in the ribs. Noct checked him back by bumping his shoulder against Prompto's enough to jostle him half a step sideways. Good. That meant they were chill. 

Noctis looked down at the densely packed pages, soft smile still in place, and continued, at rest but a touch awkward still. 

“When you were uh… did they use a surrogate? I know you're not adopted, but, with your dad…” the rest of the question roiled between them in abstract understanding. In truth, Prompto didn't know. When his curiosity had driven him to ask his parents if he was adopted, aged 11, they'd been very certain that he hadn't been. They had made clear that he was, by rights, _theirs_ biologically, but had left the rest a vague mystery. ‘Mr Argentum’ (father primus, as his other Dad had always jokingly referred to him. That and “The Weatherman”) was a trans man, so certainly the right combination of cells existed for that to be possible. Reference to any pregnancy or surrogate had never been made though. 

He answered truthfully.

“I dunno, man. I never asked. Why, what're you thinking?” 

Noctis shut the book decisively, visibly mulling over his answer. Prompto bit at the inside of his cheek, tense. 

“It's the only thing I can think of. If someone of a lineage…” he trailed off, internally shuffled his words in frustration, then continued. “It's a long shot, I'm not even sure if it's possible to do that, legally.” 

“Man, maybe I was wrong and someone just like, vessel hacked me or something. Or being the kid of a pair of glaives had some kind of-” Noct shot him a serious look which had the desired effect of shutting him up immediately, as if The great glass Draconian above them had issued the command directly.

“If you were being used as a vessel I'd know about it.” Noct said tersely, scooping up the tome and crossing the room to slam it back on the shelf as if it had done him some personal injustice. 

“Uh, okay?” a touch taken aback, Prompto waited for more of an explanation. When none was forthcoming, he prompted him cautiously. “How exactly? Noct? Buddy?” 

Noct shifted on the spot, still lingering by the shelf with his back to him. He trailed his fingertips back and forth along the vertebrae-bumps of the near uniform spines, no doubt utilising the rhythmic sensation to think. Prompto waited.

Finally, Noct took a resigned breath in, and started talking.

“Remember that spell net I made you?”

“For my nineteenth?” realisation clicked into place like a gear. “ _Motherfucker-_ you said that was a charm spell to help pick up girls!”

“I lied.” Noct looked back at Prompto with a guilty expression, making eye contact for a full second before resuming his carpet gazing. “It's a full protection grid. I knew you wouldn't keep it on you if I told you. You'd get weird about it.” 

Spell nets were a common tool in mage craft, but difficult enough to make to stop there being any mass market for them. They took time, a carefully constructed network of knots and braids, interwoven with little bits of symbolism specific to the caster. Glass beads and shells were traditional, but ceramics, metal work, gemstones and other such trinkets were generally acceptable. Noct in particular liked to work with soft cotton yarns for his nets, and the one he'd gifted Prompto had been a beautifully woven mix of sky toned blues and warm golden yellows. They worked as complex containers for specific magic, able to keep the intended effects active without the proximity of its creator, and were highly versatile in there applications. Receiving a powerful one that had been made for you as a personal gift was a significant gesture.

And Noct, beautiful, crafty, self attributed little _bastard_ , had gone and crafted him a higher level protection grid without him noticing. Then, to insure he actually used it, had made it out to be something utterly trivial and aimed squarely at his insecurities so that he, Prompto, would get into the habit of wearing it so often he stopped thinking about it.

Prompto stared at him for a moment, processing this stroke of genius betrayal. 

“No wonder it never worked.”

Noctis made a noncommittal grunt, flattening out a wrinkle in the aged rug under his feet by stepping on it pointedly. 

“Besides,” he murmured “you never needed a charm weave. You just thought you did.”

Protected _and_ placebo'd. Doubly unfair.

“Okay so, no one can vessel me except _you_ apparently.” 

Opening his mouth to protest, Noct caught the complex look of frustrated affection on Prompto's face and closed it again. 

“So that leaves what exactly? Glaives have kids all the time, does this sometimes just… happen?” He'd certainly never heard of it happening, but he was clutching at straws at this point. Not that he'd been doing much more than that from the start. 

He thought back to the incident that had incited all this the night before, remembering with a sickening twist what it had felt like. As if the world had gone fisheye, a yawning chasm of abyssal power opening up below him, its deafening, single note drone of distorted pressure- all-consuming and ancient- filling his mouth with a dry metallic tang that made his tongue curl in on itself from the edges. He screwed his eyes shut at the memory of what had come next. Gripping his wrist hard, he twisted the protective piece of leather jewellery against his skin, as if it might smudge the telltale mark beneath.

There was no way a residual fluke could result in _that_. He was sure of it, but the alternative didn't make sense. 

“I don't think so.” Noct responded, his tone slow and careful. “I wouldn't have assumed a lineage connection if it did. Maybe,” Noct hummed uncomfortably, and Prompto heard his shoes shuffling over the carpet before he felt the warm closure of Noct's palm around his bicep. “I think you need to ask your parents.”

********

“Friend or foe?” The soft voice of his father floated out to him as Prompto struggled out of his boots at the front door. The kitchen light was on, as was the dim uplighter on the landing above.

“Family!” Prompto called back, finally managing to kick his shoes off haphazardly. A disgusted grunt sounded out from the direction of the kitchen, and Prompto grinned, padding his way towards the light on brightly socked feet.

Entering the room, he found his father sat at their kitchen table, coffee mug nursed between his surprisingly delicate hands, and a battered paperback weighted open on the polished beech of the table top before him. He was in his usual post-work outfit consisting of plaid flannel pants and a loose fitting sweatshirt of a style Prompto had never managed to find new in shops. This one was a pale heather-grey, the peeling print on the front made indiscernible through decades of lazy washing and wear, the cuff of the sleeves stretched and chewed into ribbed and cratered oblivion. He looked tired but calm, his straight blond hair still vaguely holding onto its style from that morning. The image he made felt like nothing but home to Prompto.

“One of these days my hitmen will succeed in taking you out.” he couldn't quite hide his smile behind the edge of his mug as he lifted it to take a leisurely sip.

Prompto smiled back, hard and genuine, taking comfort in the gentle banter. Pulling up a chair opposite, he sat down, folding his arms on the tabletop and laying his head on his forearms with a huff. 

“Can't get rid of me that easy.”

His father turned the page of his book with a soft hum of acknowledgment. 

“Oh believe me, I know.” There was a soft thunk as he placed his mug down on the table, and with his head so close to the hard surface, it reverberated oddly in Prompto's ear. “What have you been up to today? I thought you'd be home when we got back.” 

For a moment, Prompto mulled over his response. He'd start out small, he decided, for his own sake if not his father's.

“Mmm, been at Noct's this evening.” This was met with no initial response, but that wasn't unusual. The Argentum portion of his parental unit tended towards more measured conversation like this, even in his more bubbly persona. It made serious conversations fractionally easier, as he gave Prompto time to really consider what he was saying. Plotting his next steps carefully, he continued.

“We were doing some research about some weird stuff we found out the other day. Mage stuff.” This too earned no reply, his father clearly waiting for him to continue, although something in the atmosphere had made a subtle shift towards the tense. Prompto bit his lip, staring at the jumble of mismatch magnets on the front of the fridge, looking for inspiration and the strength to continue. Eventually, when he had apparently reached the point of taking too long, his Father interrupted him.

“Prompto what are you trying to tell me? I thought we had this conversation when you were sixteen.” 

Prompto sat up, chest still low against the edge of the table, his expression an uncomfortable pout. 

“Dad, no, I'm not _coming out_.” _at least_ , he thought privately _, I hope I'm not_. 

His father shrugged at him, face a passive mask of confused bemusement.

“It's what it's sounding like.” Examining the miserable picture his son was projecting more closely, he sat up straight and closed his paperback around a crumpled receipt in place of a bookmark, pushing it aside. “What were you researching?” 

Prompto bit his lip and decided to take the plunge.

“I think I need to ask you some questions about like, where I came from.” He gripped his wrist again on automatic, a motion his father tracked swiftly before returning the full intensity of his blue eyed attention on his expression. Prompto felt his insides twist and plummet as his father gave him possibly the worst response conceivable.

“Why?” His voice was steely, the one he used right before serious judgement was handed down.

“Because…” His entire mouth felt dry, his words sticking in his throat as he tried his best to force them out. “Because something happened, last night, and… We can't figure it out. It doesn't,” unwittingly, he dug his fingernails into the soft leather and squeezed hard. “It doesn't make sense.” 

His father's expression went momentarily dark across the table, a blank ceramic mask above an impending storm, and his eyes flickered with something Prompto had never seen in them before. 

“What happened?” Prompto cringed away from the question, his gaze dropping away to where his hand was clenched into a fist against the surface of the table, unable to maintain eye contact any longer.

Feebly, he attempted to fit words around the events that filled his mind like a nightmare, but everything fell short. The metallic screech of the train, throwing up sparks like arms across a face-- the thickness of the air, boiling over with bone deep and dampened chill, viscous with the scent of ozone-- the exhilarating rush of force, slipping through him like whispered silk through a framework of fingers.

The stark shape of the pushchair, a tiny hand extended outward, helplessly framed against the unstoppable light.

Trying to describe it all felt like pinning scraps of thinning fabric over some monstrous living artwork. Inadequate.

He shook his head and did the next best thing. With shaking hands, he unballed his fist, flexed his fingers, and on the second attempt he managed to undo the buckle on his cuff. Peeling the leather free of his sweat sticky skin, Prompto revealed the rapidly forming spread of a mage mark.

**Author's Note:**

> My part in the ffxv writer's discord holiday fic exchange, written for my wonderful friend MT <3 I was so damn pleased when I pulled your name in the draw.
> 
> Originally this was meant to be a one shot, but the idea grew and developed and all in all completely got away from me until it straddled 3 whole chapters and its very own original world lore. Parts 2 and 3 will be going up over the next few days! 
> 
> It's a little late, I wanted this up on the 24th originally, but things have been a little rocky as of late. Better late than never though? I really hope you enjoy it, hun, it's been a joy to spin together, and I hope against hope that 2019 finds you better than the last year left you. Either way, you know where to find me should you need or want me at any god forsaken hour.
> 
> For anyone else reading this- if you enjoyed this PLEASE go and read MT's impressive body of work, I cannot recommend him highly enough! <3


End file.
